Kunming: Farewell to the Homeland

First off, I'll have to apologise for the lack of photos -- we weren't planning to stop in at this point and I don't have the stuff with me. I'll try to fill them in later if possible...

We left Chengdu on our final overnight train in China with a bit of trepidation. Although everyone always complains about overnight trains, we all kind of agreed that it was a bit fun. It's kind of like a slumber party from grade 6 except a lot of strangers show up and hork a lot over the conversation and giggling.

Our tour leader had been in a bit of pain since the desert and it turns out he got some kind of spider bite or something that had since become infected and swollen. It started to open up on the train and that was enough to keep most of us occupied for the trip. It was pretty gross -- perhaps the grossest open wound I've ever witnessed. To make things look worse, he'd gone for a Chinese massage treatment prior to the train ride that uses vacuum cups to get the blood flowing (similar to those Jewish ones I've heard abot from the old country.) The ladies tended to his wounds, while the boys mostly watched and drank (and in my case, ate.) Most people brought along western food picked up at the Carrefour (a pretty Chinese and westernish grocery store) but Yen and I went light and planned to eat on the train. They have carts that go by every so often with hot Chinese food -- usually rice and four or five things that they pile up on top. Delicious. There's also a dining car, so we did one of each. Of course, the ride also included the standard UNO tourney, where victory was held strictly by the Canadian contingent, and also the 5 yuan bag of juggling oranges. The scenery from the train was also breathtaking as we travelled though the mountains and hills to the south of China to Kunming.

Our arrival in Kunming basically marked the end of our organised activities. We got to our hotel in the morning and had until the following day at 12:30pm before heading to the airport. We dropped our bags and hit the streets to check out the sites. We walked up to the pedestrian area which was mostly overpriced trendy brand name shopping. A few streets over was a really good little foody street with stalls of BBQs, noodles, and other such excitement. Yen and I were trying to hold out for the local specialty, called "Across the Bridge Noodles", but couldn't pass up a few gizzard and lamb skewers. We ended up getting 6 of them and heading to the park to eat them. They were fantastic! Probably because when they were being made, the woman was consta-spicing them alternately with chili powder and some green spices (narrowing it down to everything but chili.) MMMMMmmmmmmmmmmm....

Perhaps partly due to the fantastic appetiser, the across the bridge noodles were a bit disappointing, though they were an interesting experience. When we sat down, we were confronted with a choice of 5 different versions of across the bridge noodles, varying by price. We took this to mean size and Yen got the 10 yuan version; I went for the 20 yuan bowl. While we were waiting, we notice a man sitting behind Yen with a massive bowl of noodles -- bigger than his head! We thought it was hysterical and discretely took a picture of him. Then our bowls came out. Same size -- both of them! The bowls were both filled to the same level with tasty broth. Then the big trays of stuff came out. The difference between the bowls is just the amount of stuff that goes in. Quail egg, different meats and seafood and a variety of veggies. It wasn't the most unusual or exciting thing to eat, but they way the waiter brings out the stuff and adds it all to the bowl made this soup a bit different. In any case, it filled us up something large.

After our noodles, we browsed around a bit and checked out some of the little Chinese shops before heading back to the hotel for a bit of rest before dinner. Our group had agreed to meet up for our last supper before going our separate ways in the morning. We met up and our tour leader took us to an old stone house, once dined at by important Chinese people I can't remember at the moment (oh yeah -- Chiang Kai Shek). Tastiness ensued.

After dinner we hit a funky bar in the "hump" section of town where all the young people hang out and where all the bars are. We basically drank a lot and in return for a barstool chin balancing and lime juggling act, I got some free (and not so tasty) red wine, China style. Despite the taste, it did it's job and all of us were enjoying the evening. Even Yen was right in there with her first official double sized Chinese beer with no assistance. A few tequila shots later and we were chatting with the locals. One of them even came from the same province as Yen's forefathers and they were chatting up a storm. Fun all around. Until that woman started losing control, puked all over her booth in the restaurant and needed the assistance of two men to get her to the door.

We thought we'd move on at that point as well and ended up in a dance club nearby. It was pretty low key and not too crowded and the house dancers took the opportunity to train up the newbie guys on the pole moves. That was indeed entertaining. After a short while we headed back to the hotel to detox for the night and stumbled across that same drunken lady passed out on the pavement. She'll certainly feel that one in the morning.

In the morning we said our goodbyes to both our tour group and leader and also to the motherland. We had very mixed feelings while heading to the airport in the shuttle. We had an amazing time in China and there was still so much we hadn't seen. Next time.